So uhn... Let me start this one by linking 2 TED Talks I listened to some time back... I won't reference them much, and I don't agree to everything said in those, but I think they're a nice starting point.
The first talks about Cassie, a Feminist (well, she's not one anymore, but she was back then) that made a very polemic documentary over the Men's Rights Association (she highlighted the good parts of it), and the second talks about a Betsy, woman that agrees with many Feminist ideals, but doesn't consider herself a Feminist, but an Egalitarian.
Well, Cassie was attacked very very heavily by lots of Feminists and some people even tried to make petition to ban her movie "The Red Pill" from cinemas because of the "horrendous" message it passed... They probably never watched the movie (though for the record, I didn't either, but I have a hard time believing it is bad), because at least as far as Cassie explains the movie's purpose and her story of producing it, it's definitely just a movie showing the bright sides of the Men's Rights Association and showing that men have some real issues that they need addressed and yet nobody ever talks about. And her movie is shedding some light on those goals of them, even if she might not agree with everything they said, she is acknowledging they have real issues that need to be discussed at the very least, and not ignored like they are being right now.
Betsy's video on the other hand talks about how feminism is actually an outdated word and how it already lived past its time and should be shelved, and that the word feminism is actually harming the movement and that we should instead just focus on the equality and equity parts to name the movement, instead of focusing on women rights like we are right now... Because by focusing on the gender, we end up focusing on the split between men and women, when what we want is the equal ground between both sides, so she says the name of the movement these days is just painting a bad image and that it should be thrown away.
Well... So what are the goals of feminism anyways? Honestly, I had no clue a few years back, I only heard about the things feminism achieved decades ago (which were very good and great, mind you) and also heard some memes badmouthing feminists horribly... But I never heard people discuss what feminism wants. Isn't that kinda crazy? I mean... How can we talk about feminism, if we don't even know what feminism's goal is?
So I started googling, I wanted to understand more about what was the whole point of feminism in today's day and age when men and women already have equal rights in front of the law... And what I found was... A surprisingly simple and very sensible goal... They want society to treat men and women equally. Just that, like... Pretty simple, isn't it? And... That's a LOT harder than wanting the law to treat both equally.
You see... We kinda expect different things from men and women, we often expect men to be able to fix things in the house when they break and to be able to do all the groundwork to get things done, like... Painting the house, installing the computer, fixing the circuits of a plug that stopped working... Meanwhile we expect women to take care of most of the housework and to do the most part of the childcare.
Sure, it's not like 100% of the job goes to only one person or the other... But the expectations are there, and it often goes 80% to one and 20% to the other... Then what kind of impression do we have when a woman tells you she can't cook? Or a man tells you he has no clue on how to change a lamp. (for the record, it's ridiculously easy, but you'll never know until you do it... I actually had to google how to clean my toilet before I cleaned it the first time, it's super easy, but you need to learn it somehow.)
Those kind of expectations do get in the way when we interact with people on a day to day basis, and we judge people a lot based on those... Either consciously or subconsciously... At the same time, you might think most of it can be solved by having a healthy dialogue with the people important to you and taking care of properly deciding who needs to do what in order to not overload anybody.
... Except things aren't that simple, we don't interact only with the people we're close to after all. We can't really make agreements to the person at the store's counter or the person hiring us... I wish I could link to another Ted Talk for a particular argument that I remember, but I totally forgot what keywords I needed to use to find it, so you'll just have to take my words for it.
Anyways, in one of the things mentioned in the talk, they made a research in which they'd ask people to watch a video of a man trying to sell himself for a job interview with a given speech and the person that watched the video should tell their impression of it and if they would hire the man or not.
Then they'd do the same with other people, but with a woman saying the exact same speech with about the same intonation, and ask for the impressions too... And the reaction was vastly different.
You see, if the man was more imposing and more proactive, he'd be seen as a good leader... Whereas the woman would be seen as arrogant and unable to cooperate.
On the other hand, if the man was more held back and trying talking about teamwork and common goals, he'd be seen as too weak-willed and as someone without much determination... Whereas the woman would be seen as someone that cares for the well-being of the company as a whole and as someone that wishes for things to work out the best in a good environment.
It's a drastic difference in treatment that is many times subconscious... And it's... Putting it simply, one hell of a an annoyance? Being "forced" to act a certain way to be socially accepted, being constantly pressured from all sides to conform to certain standards... It's horrible. And that's what feminism fights against, what feminists want is for people to have equal rights before society and not only before the law. A man has the right to cry and be househusband just like a woman has the right to be a CEO and never give birth. None of those are wrong.
... Why is the name feminism then? If the goal is to fight for equality, why is it that women's rights are preferred and given much more spotlight than men's rights?
Well, 2 reasons... One is historic, the women movement formed long ago and already existed for a long time while the men's right is relatively new.
The second is... Well, perhaps it's better if I link a video for this one.
Paula talks about her experiences as a transgender and how she felt the change on how people treated her from when she was a man and now that she is a woman. On how she "became dumber" because she is a woman... On how when she is in an airplane and a man says that she is on his seat and she replies that she is not and he got the wrong seat, rather than the guy taking his ticket out and double checking, he starts and argument... This never happened when she was a man, this lack of respect and trust on her word didn't exist.
Or how when she went to a mechanic to ask some questions on possible issues on her bicycle, the mechanic kept saying that the problem was elsewhere instead of answering her actual question on a possible issue, he just automatically assumed she knew nothing about bicycles and therefore had no way of knowing what could be the possible problem... And this is undoubtedly subconscious, nobody will simply assume you don't know what you're talking about just because of your gender consciously... At least I hope not.
But it happens nonetheless, and it's an issue that needs to be dealt with... But how do you even fight against society's view on women? How do you change that?
... Hell if I know, if someone truly knew how to, we'd probably have seen more progress in the past decade on the feminist movement.
In any case, women have seen those issues for a long time now, and they want those changed, that's why they fight to change it, that's why it's feminism... As for why they don't fight for men's rights? Quoting Paula's words: "I couldn't have known, what I didn't know".
It's this simple, how can you know that men are afflicted by some issues... If you don't know they are? How can you know how to clean a toilet if you don't know how to clean a toilet? You just... Don't know, you need to google it, you need to ask someone, you need to search for information somehow... And you need to try actually going through it to truly understand it.
But gender is a big barrier, how can a woman know what issues a man goes through on a daily basis because of his own gender? She can't know, what she doesn't know. She never lived what he goes through, so it's really hard for her to imagine, understand, acknowledge and fight for his issues... It's why there is a separation, it's why there is feminism and Men's Rights Association... They're different because they don't know what the other side goes through. And they don't know, or might even not think it's necessary, to fight for the other side's rights. Because they don't know anything about the issues the other party has in the first place.
This is quite long already, so I won't start diving deeply into men's issues, I'll just link 2 videos on that for those interested. A big part of it is essentially that they are generally since a very young age told not to cry nor show their feelings, which can be horrible for them and to their relationship with everyone near them too... But well, I can't know what I don't know, so I can only parrot what I heard from others here.
So... Before I close this up I just wanted to address some misconceptions like... "Feminists are transphobic" or "Feminists want more women as CEOs but don't want more women working at coal mines" or "Feminists want men to start doing all the housework while they go full-time working" and other similar stuff...
First and foremost, a good part of everything you hear about people badmouthing feminists, is them paraphrasing some really stupid discourse from a radical feminist... As with literally anything in the world, the radicals don't represent the vast majority of any group, rather, they undermine and just harm the group as a whole... I have definitely seem transphobic radical feminists for example, I even saw one that didn't even understand the concept of gender once, which would be absolutely hilarious if it wasn't very very sad. So uhn... When you end up seeing some meme or whatever really badmouthing a real quote of a feminist... Keep in mind that she might be a radical that doesn't represent the actual goals of the movement and...
The quote is out of context. And context is very very veeeeeeeeery important, many things can be taken out of context and paint a completely different view from how things actually were... I particularly remember one TV commercial that passed in my country for a while, it essentially said something like, "He helped his country greatly recover from war, created millions of jobs, greatly reduced hunger" and a bunch of other wonderful things you'd love to see in any leader... Meanwhile, the TV's image was just a bunch of red and black pixelated dots, slooooowly being zoomed out. Until suddenly, it zooms out a lot in one go and you see Hitler's image. It was a very impactful message over how giving partial information and not giving any context can paint a completely different image about someone or something.
So... That's the first thing to keep in mind... As for the other misconceptions listed... Uhn... Just... Look at this wall of text of a blog post? I really tried my best to try explaining what are the actual goals of feminism, and wanting women to be above men is definitely not one of them, feminists want equality.
But just to entertain the thought of the coal mines... Like... Does anyone want more people working at hazardous jobs? Like... Really? Who would want that? I'm pretty sure everyone would be happy if all extremely hazardous jobs that have high impacts on people's health were all completely automated and nobody had to risk their life and compromise their health for the sake of earning their salary. Of course nobody would fight for more people working on a job nobody wants, that's just silly.
So, finally, just to finish... Uhn... Well, what do I think about the movement I guess? I think it has wonderful goals, but that they're most likely impossible to be met, though I'd be very happy even with a partial success.
Do I consider myself a feminist? Not really, I don't fight for pretty much anything and at most cheer people from the sidelines... And while I don't think the movement is obsolete or that it should be phased out, I do think it would be nice if some more importance were given to both sides of the coin instead of constantly vilifying people that fight for men's rights while glorifying and vilifying feminists at the same time.
If anything, I'm someone that just wishes people learned to love one another and not hate someone, some movement or some organization they know nothing about.
PS: I may or may not have said some stuff that doesn't exactly align with the exact mindset of feminists. I googled about the movement years back and didn't do any googling to refresh my memory before making this blog post, but I did see plenty of feminists making some Ted Talks in the recent weeks and I'm fairly certain I portrayed the movement's goals appropriately.
Just What Is Feminism Anyways?
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『Ms. Tree』『Magical Girl of Love and Justice』, Female
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